Porsche #91 in pit lane for service. Yifei Ye brings the #41 WRT car to the lane and we have also seen the #7 Toyota in in the last few minutes. The graveyard shift has begun. At the end of this hour we will be halfway home. Of 61 cars that started, we have ten retirements. We have a double yellow at marshal post six as the #70 RealTeam Racing Oreca of Esteban Garcia spins off to the inside. That's an oddball deal. Sebastien Buemi pitted the #8 Toyota. The #95 Aston Martin is also in the pit lane. That's the TF Sport car of Ross Gunn, Ollie Hancock, and John Hartshorne. 162 laps now complete, four laps the margin between Toyota leading and the Alpine and the Glickenhaus behind. Ferrari are the bread with Corvette filling in GTE Pro.
Yours truly is about to eat dinner, and I shall be back to keep you updated on the race. Drivers are only allowed four hours in a six hour window and the maximum they do in all is 14 hours. While eating dinner, I watched pit stops for Glickenhaus among others. The cycle continues and now Vincent Capillaire is in the lane. We have been watching the order in GTE Pro, and remembering many people from the sports car and auto racing community who have died. Eventually, yours truly may write some kind of memorial post to some of those great drivers we've lost of the years. Not sure yet.
We are nearly at the halfway mark. Keep your head down and keep going. We've lost 21 people over the past year from the history of Le Mans and the history of this race and this place is so incredibly imporant. In two years we will see the 100th anniversary of the first race here in 1923. The basic shape still exists today. The Mulsanne straight is a national French highway. The top speeds in Le Mans Hypercar look to be fairly equal. Sebastien Buemi has not been a happy boy today so far as we approach half distance. Now, the #88 Dempsey Proton Porsche has made it to the pit lane for service and we watch Andre Negrao who has three or so laps left in his stint.
Some or most of the pit crews are doing their darnedest to get some sleep. Porsche #72 in the pit lane for service as Dries Vanthoor might still be in the car and could hand over to Alvaro Parente or to Maxime Martin. Risi Competizione has Felipe Nasr in the #82 car right now. The mechanics are cleaning the windscreen and the car only needed fuel. Jakub Smiechowski is in the lane in the #34 Intereuropol LMP2. If Aston Martin cannot enter as a factory team, they might not get in. It has to have a factory entry. Alpine are being run by a privateer team. Glickenhaus is a specialty manufacturer or road cars.
Would Lawrence Stroll allow a Valkyrie to race? That would conflict with Aston Martin's Formula 1 team. Glickenhaus #708 has just pitted as well. Originally, Hypercar was only going to be for full race cars but road cars can be included. The #52 AF Corse Ferrari just pitted with Sam Bird at the controls. The Peugeot 9X8 is an unbelievable looking car. This question was from Tim Coronel, who's brother Tom has driven here at Le Mans before. The Coronel's a great racing family from Holland as the #36 Alpine is back into the pit lane from third spot with Andre Negrao on the road. Charles Milesi is now in fourth in the #41 WRT LMP2 car. His team mate Yifei Ye is running behind him and they have a minute and a half worth of an advantage over the next LMP2 car.
Corvette #63 is in the lane and now, Jordan Taylor will hand the car over to Nicky Catsburg. He is a longtime BMW driver now with Corvette. Aston Martin plan to make a spyder version of the Valkyrie. I don't think open cockpit cars will come back to Le Mans. The closed cockpit cars are safer and much more aerodynamic. We miss the days of the BMW and the Audi open spyders which ran in the '90s and 2000s. Dylan Pereira runs second in GTE Am to Nicklas Nielsen. Team boss Tom Ferrier and his eponymous team must be confident in what they are doing.
After winning the Spa 24 Hours Nicklas Nielsen tested positive for the Coronavirus. He was not allowed to drive at the test day until Sunday afternoon. Francois Perrodo is chairman of an oil company and owns many McLaren F1's as the #26 G-Drive LMP2 car pits. It sounds like it is either Roman Rusinov or Nyck de Vries in that car. Dylan Periera is in the lane. He is from Luxembourg and his father is from Portugal. Now then, GTE Am sees that car and the #83 AF Corse Ferrari into the pit lane. Ben Keating will be the next driver into the car. Nope. Nope. It is Felipe Fraga, the Brazilian into the car.
He is still second behind Nicklas Nielsen. High Class and GR Racing are both in the pit lane for scheduled stops. It is very close to being the witching hour with the 24 Hours of Le Mans almost half over. Toyota #7 leads the sister #8 by 26 seconds with the Alpine #36 three laps behind in third place. Sebastien Buemi is told to pit for a driver change. He is 27 seconds up on the Alpine. Ten minutes to go now before the end of another racing hour. Toyota #8 in the lane and there is a driver change. Ferrari say they have a great balance on their 488 GTE. Their next driver for a triple stint will be Miguel Molina I believe.
Brendon Hartley is now at the wheel of the #8 Toyota. Sleepy time for the pit crews at Le Mans as we are closer and closer to half distance and dawn will come in another four hours or so. AF Corse Ferrari #54 in the pit lane too. Toyota, Toyota, Alpine, Glickenhaus, that is the order in Le Mans Hypercar. Lots of mechanics now asleep as we watch Nicky Catsburg flying around Le Mans. The Corvette C8.R is third in GTE Pro. Nicky "Knight Rider" Catsburg is out there runing very well, thank you. Yifei Ye is just three seconds behind his WRT team mate Charles Milesi in LMP2.
Nicky Catsburg is closing up steadily on Sam Bird. 23 seconds now between Kamui Kobayashi and Brendon Hartley as the Corvette screams down the Mulsanne. For new technology, the Le Mans Hypercars have been extremely reliable. No one has had a significant technical issue save for the opening hour of the motor race. Have Toyota and Alpine had trouble? The #8 was hit and had a Control, Alt, Delete, and the Alpine went off the road. The Glickenhaus cars have had damage. Hopefully this is not the commentator's curse. No worries about the Hypercars. Insert falling whistling sound, and explosion. Oh no!
Wait 'til morning. Nicky Catsburg wants to make the move on Sam Bird into Indianapolis and then into Arnage. No gap at all. They are right together.
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